Margaret Sullivan (journalist)

Margaret Sullivan in 2016

Margaret M. Sullivan is an American journalist. She is a former Public Editor of The New York Times, serving as the "readers' representative" and reporting directly to Arthur Sulzberger, Jr. She was the newspaper's fifth Public Editor, or ombudsman, after Daniel Okrent, Byron Calame, Clark Hoyt, and Arthur S. Brisbane, and was the first woman to hold the post. She began her tenure on September 1, 2012. She then became the media columnist for The Washington Post for six years, with her column running from May 22, 2016 to August 21, 2022. Since January 2023, she has written a weekly media and politics column for The Guardian‍'‍s US website. Earlier in her career she worked for The Buffalo News, where she was editor and vice-president.

Quotes

2016

"Journalists in the age of Trump: Lose the smugness, keep the mission" (November 29, 2016)

"Journalists in the age of Trump: Lose the smugness, keep the mission", The Washington Post (November 29, 2016)

• We — the traditional, the legacy, the mainstream media — have to change.

• Often it has been that reporter who has most skillfully played the access game — the one who has curried just enough favor with the powerful newsmaker to be smiled upon, without giving up basic credibility and integrity. That’s access journalism. Accountability journalism, by contrast, is often performed off to the side, by those who don’t have to deal with the news provider on a regular basis.

• Trump is, of course, a master of distraction and media ma­nipu­la­tion. It’s possible to resist being his chump, but it takes continued self-regulation.

• If news organizations learned anything after the campaign, they should have learned that groupthink has a tendency to miss the point and journalistic myopia requires some extra-strength corrective lenses. Do something different. Represent the interests of a broader, more ideologically diverse population. Figure out what they’re thinking and feeling — and why.

• In the wacky new world of fake news, conspiracy theories, hoaxes — and social media’s unthinking participation in spreading all of that — facts and truth get lost in the noise. A responsible media needs to be especially careful not to unwittingly spread lies by amplifying them. Some early coverage of Trump’s recent unwarranted, evidence-free blasts about the illegality of some of the popular vote fell into that trap. It’s depressing but a fact of life that a lot of people don’t know the difference between fake news and conspiracy bilge and verified fact. Nor do they seem to care.

2020–2024

• After spending the first three decades of my career at one of Buffett’s papers, the Buffalo News, I’m not willing to accept that. Even now, my former newsroom — down by about half from its peak — is doing critically important work, not just crucial watchdog journalism (insider trading by a congressman) but cultural coverage (memories of a concert venue) that knits the community together.
  Amid this nightmare financial scenario, what can be done?
  [Philip] Napoli, for one, thinks that American citizens and our big thinkers need to buckle down — fast — about substantial policy changes that could involve both direct and indirect public funding for local journalism. It "would take us in a more European direction," he said.
  That notion, once radioactive in journalism because it seems to threaten the independence of news organizations, must now be taken seriously.
  • "The future of local newspapers just got bleaker. Here’s why we can’t let them die" The Washington Post (February 15, 2020)
  • Philip Napoli (James R. Shepley Professor of Public Policy in the Sanford School of Public Policy at Duke University) was co-author of the study on local newspapers Margaret Sullivan mentions in her article.

• "Fair and balanced" was the original Fox News lie, one of the rotten planks that built the foundation for Wednesday's democratic disaster.
  Over decades, with that false promise accepted as gospel by millions of devotees, Fox News radicalized a nation and spawned more extreme successors such as Newsmax and One America News.
  Day after day, hour after hour, Fox gave its viewers something that looked like news or commentary but far too often lacked sufficient adherence to a necessary ingredient: truth.
  Birtherism. The caravan invasion. Covid denialism. Rampant election fraud. All of these found a comfortable home at Fox.
  In the Trump era, the network — now out of favor for not being quite as shameless as the president demands — was his best friend and promoter. So to put it bluntly: The mob that stormed and desecrated the Capitol on Wednesday could not have existed in a country that hadn’t been radicalized by the likes of Sean Hannity, Tucker Carlson and Laura Ingraham, and swayed by biased news coverage.
  • "The pro-Trump media world peddled the lies that fueled the Capitol mob. Fox News led the way" The Washington Post (January 7, 2021)
  • Published following the 2021 United States Capitol attack on January 6.

• [O]ne key to running Twitter is the tricky matter of "managing up". Anyone who's ever worked in a corporation or big agency, especially as a manager, knows that you have to handle the boss. You have to keep them informed, hold off their worst instincts, tactfully set boundaries and, most of all, somehow convince them that every move you make is really their brilliant idea – or at least a fulfillment of their underlying vision.
  And there's the rub. Twitter’s problems are solvable. But the volatile and narcissistic Elon Musk|Musk]] may be the boss that can’t be managed.
  • "How I would fix Twitter if I were CEO" The Guardian (25 January 2023)

• [Tucker] Carlson has never been a stickler for the truth, as he proved in the run-up to this interview, when he claimed that he was the only western media figure who cared enough to get [Vladimir] Putin on the record.
  That's absurd. Many American reporters have tried unsuccessfully to sit down with Putin, especially since the invasion of Ukraine.
  But the Russian president was waiting for the right stooge. With Carlson, he got just that.
  • "Tucker Carlson’s Putin interview wasn’t journalism. It was sycophancy", The Guardian (February 9, 2024).
  • The Vladimir Putin Interview premiered on the Tucker Carlson Network and X (formerly Twitter) on February 8, 2024.